


Who says exactly what they’re thinking?

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV), The Office (US)
Genre: Alcohol, Bacon, Crossover, F/M, Foreman grill, Gen, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:41:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28242549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Byron had said the Q word earlier, which was what had brought all of this upon them in the first place.
Relationships: Jedediah "Jed" Foster & Mary Phinney
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3
Collections: Mercy Street Crossover Advent Silver and AU





	Who says exactly what they’re thinking?

“I want the grill,” Byron announced as if it were a perfectly reasonable demand. But also as if he’d beaten them all to the punch and was calling dibs plus shotgun. He nodded as he spoke, maybe trying to hypnotize them into agreement with him since in general, that was his best chance at getting anyone to think he was on the right track unless Anne had switched over to Goldschlager and was post-call, in which case, she’d agree to nearly anything he proposed. That was how she explained roller-skating in a monokini and a ten-gallon hat; they’d collectively learned not to ask questions because she’d sure as heck answer. 

“What the hell are you talking about, Hale?” Jed said. “And quitting hogging the Cheetos. Just because they match your beard is no reason you get to eat the whole bag.”

“The Foreman Grill. The one he grilled his foot on. With? It’s an odd construction, isn’t it?” Byron explained. He was tipping his chair back, barely balancing it with one chartreuse Nike; if they were lucky, he might concuss himself as badly as the patient in bed 4, the one raving about Moses and beets. Bridget, the charge nurse up on 6, had a particular way of dealing with even mild head injuries that was nothing short of astonishing. And she had a stash of real ginger ale and graham crackers, not the hospital knock-offs.

“That’s what you’re focusing on? The adverbs?” Mary said. How had he matched into residency? And why? She wondered that nearly every day but she’d learned it was better not to ask what she thought was a rhetorical question of Byron, ever, or Jed when he’d been working for than seventeen hours straight, which given their residency program was one day in three. She could have kept working as a pharma rep with Gustavo, but no, she had to be idealistic and starry-eyed about working as a general surgeon in what Dr. Summers, their training director, euphemistically called “the urban core.”

“He didn’t bring the grill with him,” Sam said. Patiently. He was always incredibly patient, well beyond what anyone around him deserved. If he ever lost his temper, Mary was fairly certain it would signal the arrival of the Antichrist.

“That’s a pity. Don’t we tell them to bring along what they’d injured themselves with?” Byron said. “For science?”

“No,” Jed replied. “No one does that. If they call, the Isabela at the front desk usually says to bring their finger if they cut that off, but not the knife. Or in this effed-up case, the grill. And also, why? Why would you want his foot-grilling grill?”

“Well, he’s not going to want to use it again. Not going to want to return to the scene of the crime as it were. Too many memories,” Byron said. “Trauma,” he added, really drawing out the vowels like he was Joel Grey in Cabaret.

“Byron, for the love of—”

“D’you really want a grill that badly?” Mary said. Yeah, their stipend was measly but the perk of living in Scranton was the cost of living was extremely low. What would be excruciating penury almost everywhere else was only dire straits. And the Presidente marg at Chili’s was deep enough and cheap enough to make up for their few night’s off occasionally being interrupted by shenanigans like the night those people had an award show. Jed had nearly chucked a pair of Awesome Blossoms over the half-wall that separated them when that blindingly white guy started rapping but then he came from money, he could afford to toss an appetizer Mary actually had to budget for along with toilet paper and gas.

“I enjoy having breakfast in bed. I like waking up to the smell of bacon. Sue me. And since I don't have a butler, I have to do it myself,” Byron said.

“You are willing to eat bacon that tastes of grilled foot?” Mary said, almost grossing herself out and definitely making Jed turn a little green around the gills, which he was never, ever admit to. 

“Some of us are more adventurous, Mary, open to the world’s bounty, a variety of flavors and flavor profiles, the durian, the sea urchin, the foot bacon if you will. We don’t all just eat ramen for every meal,” Byron expounded. She opened her mouth to say she was eating ramen to be able to pay her car insurance, but she saw Sam shake his head very slightly and caught Jed’s eyes on her. There’d been some dancing around a night out, just the two of them, and this could translate to something other than pizza or burgers if she played her cards right. The look in Jed’s eyes suggested he wouldn’t mind folding…

“Point taken, Byron,” Mary said. “But you’re still out of luck when it comes to the grill.”

“I think there’s one kicking around the 7th floor,” Anne said from the couch, her voice muffled by the tattered copy of People magazine she’d let fall across her face. “It was Silas’s and since he’s gone—”

“Anne, you utter angel!” Byron exclaimed. 

_Thai?_ mouthed Jed, tugging at an imaginary tie at the neck of his scrubs and drawing attention to his finely made hands and the hint of dark chest hair. Mary nodded quickly. Byron’s rhapsodic waxing was waning and she wasn’t interested in having him tag along while she and Jed shared a Massaman curry and then a ride home. And she knew, freshly made foot bacon notwithstanding, there was nothing Byron would like better.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a line from The Office, I think from Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling).
> 
> In medicine, the "Q word" is "quiet," which you never use to refer to the ER or ward.


End file.
